


brightest light in the darkest night

by lechatnoir



Category: X-Factor (Comics), X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 22:10:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17252306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lechatnoir/pseuds/lechatnoir
Summary: julio, shatterstar, and the hymn of the earth beneath the cold chill of winter's bones in new york city.





	brightest light in the darkest night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ectocooler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ectocooler/gifts).



> written as a part of the x-plain the xmen discord's holiday fic exchange for the wonderous charlie.

The hum of the city is always present to Julio’s ears – the earth feels warm beneath his feet (not literally, he’d say, shoving his hands into his pockets  – _not unless you’re thinking of walking all over freshly made asphalt in the summer_ ) and if he holds his breath and concentrates, he can pinpoint what it’s telling him—sometimes.

He doesn’t really talk about it – it’s a secondary thing, something he keeps to himself most of the time, except the odd times during the winter, when he feels hollow and empty, when there’s a mix of holiday chatter and swarms of people flooding the city, strings of lights and the smell of pine trees scattered throughout the city ( _Look, trees between Lexington and Park – no wait, here’s another batch! On 3 rd avenue , between all the noisy cars – these smell better, I think. Or the ones lower – near 8th street, it’s quieter there. – _He’d hear ‘Star say, holding hands and staying close, as they weave through the crowds, footsteps a heavy _thud_ against the asphalt and the earth’s quiet in Julio’s head.

(They’ve started to keep a tradition, between the two of them – in between running the club and getting runaway mutants to safety, and interdimensional travelling and fighting against old ghosts that never seem to die – to find the quiet moments and keep close to each other.)

 Some days are easier than others – the hollowness isn’t as vivid, the emptiness isn’t as pronounced – he’ll keep himself busy and alternate between lazying around and keeping a packed schedule – _get up early, get breakfast with ‘Star, open up the club – take inventory, see what odd jobs ‘Star needs help with – monitor the airways and police radio for  any signs of mutant trafficking – sleep, at some point_. Other days are harder but, he thinks there are more good days than bad, and so he keeps going, even when the days blur in a daze between sleep and being semi awake.

He hates those days, the ones where he can’t remember what happened, where his head feels heavy and limbs as if they’re not his own – like he’s been asleep for far too long and now everything is sluggish and slow, an almost overbearing suffocating way. Sometimes, he’ll keep a list of things to keep going – just, simple things like keeping the plant army they’ve quietly amassed in their apartment growing, because ‘Star might accidentally overwater the plants, keeping the tunnels open and working so that the underground network would continue on for as long as possible – so that no one would have to lose hope that they couldn’t be saved. Things like that.

The winter time brings about it a sense of stillness – it’s not like the long days of summer, or the way everything slowly turns green during the spring after the rains – it’s easier to hear the earth hum beneath his feet during those months and yet, the winter brings about a quietness that he thinks he hasn’t heard fall over New Years in years.

“Are you alright?” he hears ‘Star say from behind, arms wrapped tight around him on the couch and he nods, “Just thinking, you know how it is, thoughts flying around everywhere.”

“Thoughts don’t actually fly – they can’t grow wings, you know.” Star mutters, staring at Julio with a serious expression on his face, not breaking eye contact until Julio cracks and laughs, and ‘Star thinks that Julio’s smile is the brightest thing he’s seen, brighter than the lights that snake around the trees lining the city,  brighter than the star filled with diamonds on top of the tree standing in Rockefeller Center, swarmed by  flashes of camera and phone lights from locals and tourists trying to capture just a bit of the holiday charm that seems to flicker through the city streets.

 Julio thinks of stars, summer nights, and the grass underneath his back, ‘Star’s warm body next to his in the summer haze , and how the air gets cold and the stars shine with a glimmer – dying and dead but flickering against the inky midnight of the sky and how, when he turns onto his side and looks at ‘Star – he thinks that he’s caught the brightest star of them all, and watches ‘Star’s face crack beneath the stoic exterior as a smile fights its way onto his face.

 

It’s something that’s just theirs – has always been theirs – this uncanny knack to understand each other despite the entire world roaring at them to _stop_ , to shy away from who they are, to lock them into boxes and put them on pedestals that don’t fit them – but this ability to _know_ each other, that’s theirs, that’s what they’ve built, all these years. It’s why Julio sometimes is dumbstruck at the quiet moments – in that half asleep half awake stage that ‘Star rarely gets to be in, the early morning hours sometimes when he’d wake up in a cold sweat from a nightmare  and ‘Star just holds him tightly in his sleep – solid, _real_ , and breathing, not dead like in the nightmares that sneak up behind him. Sometimes it’s the opposite – that ‘Star will wake up with a roar tearing out of his throat and eyes wide with adrenaline and it’ll be Julio who’ll stay up and hold him close, letting him hear his heartbeat, steady – slow – until he calms down.

They say that the earth can hum when it’s happy – some say, in the old stories, that the earth would sing a hymn – when it’s warm and the plants and trees are growing again after the winter thaw – but even in the dead of the winter with the longest of nights and the frigid winds that howl like wolves at a distance – Julio thinks he can hear the earth sing to him when _he’s_ happy – it’s something he doesn’t really think about, but once or twice, when he finds himself alone with his thoughts and with ‘Star, he thinks he hears it, quiet and barely there, but like the warm lull that sweeps over the streets when there’s freshly fallen snow that makes the air less frigid, the street lamps more warm, almost other worldly.

(‘ _Maybe those brownies we had earlier had too much of the special dough in them?’_ Julio thinks, but knows that’s not true and presses a kiss to ‘Star’s face when the other least expects it, giddy and warm at the song that courses through his bones.)

The earth hums a song and Julio can hear it, and he thinks he might be getting less sleep than usual whenever it does hum a song to him – but it’s the same feeling he gets like from _before_ – when he first got his powers back after being cut off from them, when the earth would rumble around and sing through his bones – it’s the same, just quieter amongst the winter hymns that the snow and winds bring with them.

 

_You’ve caught the brightest fallen star_

_Who has been lost and found and lost again_

_Let it guide you and you to it_

_Fix its shattered bones, teach it how to live_

_And may the summer rays and winter snows_

_Never tarnish the warmth between_

_The brightest child of earth, and the fallen star who shines so bright._

_End._


End file.
